Tag: Apollo 11

No one can say they’ve had the life of Neil Armstrong, who has died at 82 – my mother’s age.

I will never forget that night, July 20, 1969, the way people just a little older than me remember where they were when JFK was shot. I was a few months shy of ten years old and was spending some time at “the lake”, the cottage of Auntie Dot and Uncle Homer near Portland, Ontario. I remember sitting – more likely sprawling – in front of Homer’s old TV set (and he had probably needed to go out to the mosquito and cobwebbed back of the house to turn the antenna beforehand). I remember Auntie Dot, and me in turn, being amazed that we could hear the astronauts that far away, let alone see them.

Speaking to Mom tonight, she remembers us all heading outside after to look at the moon which is fitting since today’s statement from the Armstrong family urges us to do just that in Neil’s memory – oh, but with a wink to him as well!